MN- “Most abusive Twin Cities priest” also worked in New Ulm; SNAP responds

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014

Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, Northeast MN (Duluth, MN & Superior, WI) SNAP director (218- 340-1277, [email protected])

According to just-released church records, for almost 60 years, numerous Minnesota Catholic officials concealed the crimes of a predator priest who:

– was at a church retreat house in Nevis, Minn., that let him say weekend masses at nearby parishes even though center staff had been warning in writing that he had molested children, and 

– was returned to ministry as a chaplain at a nursing home in 1969 in Ivanhoe in the New Ulm diocese. (This fact had not been reported previously.) 

We urge New Ulm Bishop John M. LeVoir to aggressively seek out anyone who may have been sexually assaulted by Fr. Louis Heitzer.

A Twin Cities Catholic official, Fr. Kevin McDonough, wrote in 2002 that Fr. Heitzer was “‘perhaps the most abusive priest ever to be part of this Archdiocese’ abusing kids ‘every place he went.’”

Earlier this year, we prodded Bishop LeVoir to take action about predator priests. As best we can tell, he has ignored us.

We hope he won't ignore us this time. In his diocese, there may be eight or ten men who struggle in silence, shame, secrecy and self-doubt, living sad and lonely lives as they battle the life-long harm caused by childhood sexual trauma. They deserve comfort and consolation. They deserve a bishop who acts like a compassionate shepherd, not a cold-hearted CEO.

Bishop LeVoir should use his diocesan websites, parish bulletins, and pulpit announcements to seek out and help anyone who may have been sexually assaulted by Fr. Heitzer or any other child molesting cleric in the New Ulm area.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]), Frank Meuers of Plymouth (952-334-5180, [email protected])